Finite-temperature magnetism in fractional quantum Hall systems: the composite-fermion Hartree-Fock approximation and beyond

Using the Hamiltonian formulation for composite fermions developed recently, the temperature dependence of the spin polarization is computed for the translationally invariant fractional quantum Hall states at nu = 1/3 and nu = 2/5 in two steps. In the first step, the effect of particle-hole excitations on the spin polarization is computed in a composite-fermion Hartree-Fock approximation. The computed magnetization for nu = 1/3 lies above the experimental results for intermediate temperatures indicating the importance of long-wavelength spin fluctuations which are not correctly treated in the Hartree-Fock; approximation. In the second step, spin fluctuations beyond the Hartree-Fock approximation are included fur nu = 1/3 by mapping the problem onto the coarse-grained continuum quantum ferromagnet. The parameters of the description in terms of the effective continuum quantum ferromagnet are extracted from the preceding Hartree-Fock analysis. After the inclusion of spin fluctuations in a large-N approach, the results for the finite-temperature spin polarization are in quite good agreement with the experiments.